Between yesterday and today, Mama Mbuna has released her 11th spawn. I have
no idea how many fry she released, being as I was not sitting in front of my aquarium at the time of the event; however, during the past hour or so, I
have been able to spot two or three of the newly-released fry. As with
female #2's recent fry release, I don't have high expectations for survivors from this release either. There are now simply too many hungry fish in the tank. One thing is for certain. With so many females now in the tank -- who
are all Mama Mbuna's children -- there is sure to be some undetermined
number of fry in the tank at all times.



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Between yesterday and today, Mama Mbuna has released her 11th
spawn. I have no idea how many fry she released, being as I was not sitting in front of my aquarium at the time of the event; however,
during the past hour or so, I have been able to spot two or three
of the newly-released fry. As with female #2's recent fry release,
I don't have high expectations for survivors from this release
either. There are now simply too many hungry fish in the tank. One
thing is for certain. With so many females now in the tank -- who
are all Mama Mbuna's children -- there is sure to be some
undetermined number of fry in the tank at all times.

/me thinks i'd be setting up a special birthing tank for them to spit their young'uns out in and then moving them back to the main tank whils't the babies grow up enough to survive in the main tank... what would it take? a 20 or two? ;)

i've done the same with corydorus' some 4 or 5 years ago... that is, until one of my sons grabbed my main female for his 10 tank and let an algea bloom take over :(

)\/(ark


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Hello Mark. Actually, when I first started keeping Malawi cichlids a number
of years ago, I did in fact take a variety of steps in order to try to save
as many fry as possible. This included separating holding females, as well
as stripping females. The end result of doing that was about eighty-two Copadichromis borleyi in a four-foot tank...not good.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, when those fish died off due to a rather prolonged heat wave -- and even turning off aquarium lights didn't help -- I let the tank sit empty for a few years, until I finally moved it into my
cooler bedroom last year.

That is when I set up the current mbuna tank with what turned out to be four males and one female once they matured. I now have several dozen fish in the tank -- all fry of the original occupiers.

Until quite recently, I did in fact have two twenty-gallon tanks set up, as well as two seven gallon tanks. Occasionally I would put holding females in them. However, in recent months, I have decided to just leave the new fry to their fate, because quite frankly, I simply don't have the space to maintain
so many fish. Please remember that a female mbuna spawns every 30-40 days,
and I now have perhaps half a dozen females in the tank.

In short, we are talking about a major fish population explosion if I were to keep saving as many fry as I possibly can. As I said, I simply don't have the means or money to maintain so many fish.

Besides the above-noted points, just trying to catch a holding female is a major challenge due to the number of rocks in the tank. It basically means stripping down the tank to the sand substrate, upsetting everything and everybody in the tank. It's just too much of a hassle to do it for every holding female.

So, those that survive in the main tank survive, and those that don't, don't.


Jeff Snyder, SysOp - Armageddon BBS Visit us at endtimeprophecy.org port 23 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Your Download Center 4 Mac BBS Software & Christian Files. We Use Hermes II


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